Tuesday, June 01, 2010

As I listened to various comments in Dr. Caner's sermons and heard other comments relayed to me by others, I began to suspect that Dr. Caner's upbringing was something that primarily fell not on his Muslim father, his mother (whose religion is not well known), but on his grandmother (who has never, to my knowledge, been accused of being a Muslim).

The following two paragraphs are found on pages 1-2 of Ergun Caner's recent book, Holier Than Thou, in which "Mormor" is the nickname for Caner's grandmother (UPDATE: As Lockheed has pointed out in the comment box, "Mormor" is not so much a nickname, per se, as the Swedish word for maternal grandmother):

Compared to Emir, however, Erdem and I might as well have been two homeless squatters living on the lawn. Since Emir was born last, Mormor played a larger part in raising him. Both of our parents were working; and as Erdem and I went off to school, Mormor and Emir spent countless hours togther. They developed a bond that was unbreakable. I have often stated that if Emir and I were in a car wreck, I could be covered in blood and have bones protruding from my flesh, and Mormor would step over me to get to Emir, who would be unscathed.

When called upon to do chores, all Emir had to do was muster a feeble cough, and he was relieved of duty. By simply rubbing his head and moaning slightly, Emir could get out of anything. The workload fell on my shoulders. As I shuffled out the door, I angrily saw Emir, standing behind Mormor, with a slight smile, waving and pointing. I wanted to stab him in the neck -- such brotherly love.

The point of this story about Caner's childhood is to illustrate a problem in what Caner calls "toxic Christianity," namely the felt need to be loved more than others.

7 comments:

Just as Latin has no single words for either "uncle" or "aunt", Swedish has no single words equivalent to either "grandmother" or "grandfather", but must specify which side of the family the relationship is through. Swedish does this concisely, using far to mean "father", mor to mean "mother", for:

I should preface this comment... I agree with you that the evidence is overwhelming that Caner has fabricated and embellished much of his testimony.

But, this post isn't much of an argument against Caner's claims about his upbringing. Wouldn't it fit well with the idea of a single working mother and a grandmother who stays home? In a situation like that, you can't pick and choose between which one raised him.

Personally, I go to work every day and my wife does not. Does that I am not raising our son?

Here's something that has not been brought out yet about raising and disciplining "Swedish" children.

I have some "Swedish" missionary friends. I met them in the middle 1970's when they came to the United States to study our 'way' of communal living at several of our "christian ranches" where people could come to detox from drugs or unwind from the stress of life or could pursue our style of Biblical Christianity. They are Christian and Lutheran is the state religion for them. They have three children. They stayed in the United States for a year traveling around and visiting various ministries.

I then paid them a visit in Sweden for several weeks. One thing that came out was there is no corporal punishment allowed. Parents cannot "spank" their children. The law only allows for reasoning with them and by "wit" disciplining them.

If Ergun's grandmother, a Swedishnational who emigrated to the United States to become an immigrant, it seems highly unlikely she would be spanking them when disciplining them but rather reasoning with them; which seems to be a lot less harsh upon them than their father's Muslim upbringing?

Another thing that I found odd when over there in Sweden was both the Swedes and the Muslim immigrants could speak fairly good English. I couldn't speak either but I got along well talking with both.

If English is not your first language, it is obvious it should be your second. If English is your first language, it is not so clear as to what should be your second--but in Texas, it should be Spanish.

If a person speaks three languages, you call them trilingual. If they speak two, they are bilingual. If they speak one, you call them Americans. A bit overstated, but definitely true for me.

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